Artificial intelligence is one of the words frequently mentioned by Robin Li, founder, chairman and CEO of Baidu, in industry seminars and government events. He also proposed building a “G20 Brain platform” in his book On building a G20 SMART Innovation Initiative.
“We think the next era after the mobile Internet is the era of ARTIFICIAL intelligence, so Baidu started investing heavily in AI five or six years ago.” In a recent interview with National Business Daily, Li yanhong said that the era of ARTIFICIAL intelligence is coming and will bring endless possibilities. The manufacturing, automobile, health and entertainment industries will all be transformed by AI in the future. He even said that for Baidu, “Baidu could be a completely different company” in five to 10 years if it could seize the ai opportunity.
Giiso Information, founded in 2013, is a leading technology provider in the field of “artificial intelligence + information” in China, with top technologies in big data mining, intelligent semantics, knowledge mapping and other fields. At the same time, its research and development products include editing robots, writing robots and other artificial intelligence products! With its strong technical strength, the company has received angel round investment at the beginning of its establishment, and received pre-A round investment of $5 million from GSR Venture Capital in August 2015.
During the G20, Li began to mention a word frequently — artificial intelligence. The reason why I choose to talk about ARTIFICIAL intelligence frequently this year is that the technology is mature enough or the market has a better soil for exploration? What is baidu’s overall layout of AI and its expectation for the future?
“Ai itself is my personal interest and hobby. I was very interested in AI when I was a student 20 years ago, before IT entered the practical stage. Probably five or six years ago, we suddenly found out that artificial intelligence gradually began to enter the practical stage, is the main impetus to compute resources is more and more cheap, and computing faster and faster, the algorithm of artificial intelligence can be put to use often “li mentioned in many areas, but in the early does not guarantee success, how artificial intelligence will eventually form on the product, Baidu is also exploring what kind of products will ultimately rely heavily on ARTIFICIAL intelligence and yet have huge market potential.
The reporter noticed that Robin Li also brought a G20 SMART Innovation Initiative to the B20 summit. He proposed to build a G20 Brain platform, put forward the general trend of the ERA of ARTIFICIAL intelligence, and suggested that governments and enterprises of all countries should gradually open the existing AI platform to all G20 members. Build an open and shared ai network platform. This initiative is at the top of the 2016 B20 Policy Recommendation Report and runs through the logic of the G20 Hangzhou Summit Communique released after the meeting.
“Ai is our ‘dish’, Baidu will have more influence in the future than now”
National Business Daily (NBD for short) : If you set your development expectations for the future in five years and 10 years, what do you hope Baidu will be like by then?
Robin Li: The biggest difference between Baidu five years from now and today is that many people will no longer use words to ask questions on Baidu search, but sound and pictures. Of course, there are many other changes, such as driverless cars. Five years later, Baidu’s driverless cars are relatively common on the road.
Artificial intelligence really brings endless possibilities, and Baidu is currently very ahead in this regard, which is really our “dish”. If we can seize this opportunity, in five to ten years, Baidu can become a completely different company, become a much bigger company than it is now.
NBD: BAT are all giants born in the PC Internet period. Under the trend of cross-border integration, how do you think artificial intelligence will change traditional industries and affect China’s economy in the future?
Robin Li: BAT is not the only one. American companies such as Facebook and Amazon are all giants born in the PC Internet era. Apple and Microsoft, which were born in the pre-Internet era, are also developing well because they run well and catch up with the Internet tide. So what will be the next big, innovative, fast-growing company? I think it’s artificial intelligence.
Giiso information, founded in 2013, is the first domestic high-tech enterprise focusing on the research and development of intelligent information processing technology and the development and operation of core software for writing robots. At the beginning of its establishment, the company received angel round investment, and in August 2015, GSR Venture Capital received $5 million pre-A round of investment.
In the future, ARTIFICIAL intelligence will have a profound impact on many industries, such as manufacturing, automobile industry, health and entertainment industry.
Take the manufacturing industry as an example. In my opinion, all manufacturing industries in the future belong to the artificial intelligence industry, or Internet of Things industry. All goods should be connected to the Internet and data should be sent back to the cloud, and all products should be analyzed by artificial intelligence technology, so as to bring real value to consumers and users. China is a big manufacturing country, and I think we need to pay close attention to the development of ARTIFICIAL intelligence technology in this regard, and make timely use of the latest technology to upgrade our products and manufacturing capabilities.
In recent years, China has often said that its economy has entered a “new normal”, and the Internet Plus has become an important means to improve economic efficiency. However, China relies on the “Internet Plus” to maintain growth, and what does the sustained and rapid growth of the Internet depend on? I think it’s artificial intelligence.
In fact, not only China’s economy, artificial intelligence will create many new opportunities for the world economy while disrupting many industries. For example, with artificial intelligence, machine translation will become more feasible in the coming years, and more tourists will travel abroad. With the development of driverless cars, people can spend their leisure time in cars watching movies and listening to audio books, etc. All these changes will boost consumption and create new jobs.